NEW DELHI – India began vaccinating health workers on Saturday in what is probably the largest Covid-19 vaccination campaign in the world, joining the ranks of the wealthiest nations where the effort is already underway.
Indian authorities hope to give injections to 300 million people, approximately the population of the United States. But there is no manual for the enormity of the challenge.
The recipients include 30 million doctors, nurses and other frontline employees, followed by 270 million others, who are over 50 or have illnesses that make them vulnerable to coronavirus.
For workers who pulled India’s battered health care system during the pandemic, vaccines offered confidence that life can begin to return to normal.
“I am excited to be one of the first to receive the vaccine,” said nurse Gita Devi, as she raised her sleeve to receive the vaccine.
“I am happy to get a vaccine made in India and we do not have to rely on third parties for that,” said Devi, who treated patients during the pandemic at a hospital in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the campaign with a speech broadcast on national television.
“We are launching the largest vaccination campaign in the world and that shows the world our capacity,” said Modi. But he pleaded with citizens to keep their guard high and not believe any “rumors about vaccine safety”.
It was not clear whether Modi, 70, took the vaccine himself, like other world leaders, as an example of the safety of the injection. His government said that politicians will not be considered priority groups in the first phase of the launch.
The simple scale of the vaccination campaign has its obstacles.
For example, India plans to rely heavily on a digital platform to track vaccine shipment and delivery. But public health experts point out that the internet remains uneven in large parts of the country and some remote villages are completely disconnected.
India approved the emergency use of two vaccines, one developed by the University of Oxford and the UK-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and another by the Indian company Bharat Biotech on January 4. Cargo planes flew 16.5 million vaccines to different Indian cities last week.
Health experts fear that the regulatory shortcut taken to approve the Bharat Biotech vaccine without waiting for hard data to show its effectiveness, could amplify the vaccine’s hesitation. At least one state health minister has opposed its use.
India’s Ministry of Health has been angered by the criticism and says the vaccines are safe, but says health workers will have no choice in deciding which vaccine they can get.
According to Dr. SP Kalantri, director of a rural hospital in Maharashtra, the hardest hit state in India, such an approach was worrying because he said regulatory approval was hasty and has no scientific backing.
“In a hurry to be populist, the government (is) making decisions that may not be in the common man’s best interest,” said Kalantri.
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Against the backdrop of a growing global number of coronavirus deaths – reaching 2 million on Friday – the clock is moving forward to vaccinate as many people as possible. But the global campaign has been uneven.
In rich countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada and Germany, millions of citizens have already received some measure of protection with at least one dose of the vaccine. But elsewhere, immunization initiatives are barely off the ground.
Although most of the doses were purchased by wealthy countries, COVAX, a project supported by the UN to provide injections to developing parts of the world, found itself without vaccines, money and logistical aid.
As a result, the chief scientist at the World Health Organization warned that it is highly unlikely that collective immunity – which would require at least 70% of the globe to be vaccinated – will be achieved this year.